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Bella's public facing email address (eor@eor.eor; many of the Bells are following similar protocols to Stella's, for web presence, and in Origin the relevant empire is called the Empire of Rings, after Saturn's feature) gets a lot of mail. Jane used to help with it; without Jane, there is still extremely smart filtering going on, and a program no one has noticed at work yet auto-responds to almost everything with canned but tweakable responses and links to the imperial website.
This still leaves a lot of emails every day she has to deal with herself, although some of them allow her to make gentle adjustments to Jane's program to handle future inquiries of the same kind. The number goes up over time. Slipstick's still on the lookout for a suitable secretary type person to help out. Until then, Bella leans on super-speed.
She has had to address the rumors about being able to raise the dead. It's a frustrating, narrow line to walk, between lying, explaining too much, and getting everyone's hopes up. Currently the FAQ has a section that looks like this:
Can you raise the dead?
Eventually, I'd like to be able to do that for everyone's departed loved ones. I'm working on it as fast as I can, but today all I can deploy are public health measures and, on a smaller scale, immortality, for people who are currently alive.
I heard you were dead and brought yourself back to life / I heard someone else was dead and you brought them back to life!
This is an exaggeration. I'm immortal; if I suffer lethal damage, the thing I do is called 'torching', not 'dying'. The same is true of other people who I've made able to torch.
I want to be able to torch.
There's a waiting list, but this is something I can do. Just fill out the form and my staff will process your application; if everything checks out the current wait time for getting into a torching batch is about four months.
I don't want to torch, but I want to stop aging.
This is also available, but the waiting list is longer; apply here.
Are you sure you can't raise the dead?
I really, really wish I could do that for everyone who asks. I maintain a waiting list of people whose resurrection has been particularly requested so that as soon as I have this capability I'll know who to use it for first.
bellfounding
One day, someone named Ethan Rayne sends her an email which goes like so:
Subject: What exactly is the holdup?
I want someone resurrected. Name of Randall White, died of a dream overdose six months ago in London. Assuming you're not some kind of elaborate hoax, it would be nice if you explained just what your technical difficulties are, because I'm not buying this 'exaggeration' crap for a second. You're lying or you're onto something: which is it?
bellfounding
This email never hits Bella's eyes. Ethan gets a reply from the vestiges of Jane.
Re: What exactly is the holdup?
I've added Randall to the waiting list for you, with you as a contact person for him, and I have every confidence that Her Majesty will be able to get him back for you eventually; I'm just not sure when 'eventually' is. None of her reported accomplishments are hoaxes, but between the distribution of torching and the general scope of her activities, it was inevitable that there would be rumors about resurrection, too. She's working on it.
Please feel free to email with any further questions.
- Imperial Staff
He shows Ripper the email and asks if he's bloody well satisfied yet. The answer is no. Well, the answer is 'fuck off, Rayne', but these things require a certain amount of interpretation.
The thing is, neither of them actually liked Randall, but for Ripper that seems to make it worse. If hauling that little shit out of the grave is what it takes to shut up all this pathetic moping, then that's what Ethan will do. Except that since he's now been blown off by Her fucking Majesty the Empress of Useless Bullshit, it doesn't look like he'll be getting that resurrection anytime soon.
Of course, maybe all they need is more pressure. A personal appeal from someone who actually gives a shit, for example. But for all his moping, Ripper is decidedly lacking in the action department. When asked how someone can be worth all this emotional turmoil but not worth a simple email to the imperial necromancy department, he just growls and throws food.
Maybe all he needs is more pressure.
The thing is, neither of them actually liked Randall, but for Ripper that seems to make it worse. If hauling that little shit out of the grave is what it takes to shut up all this pathetic moping, then that's what Ethan will do. Except that since he's now been blown off by Her fucking Majesty the Empress of Useless Bullshit, it doesn't look like he'll be getting that resurrection anytime soon.
Of course, maybe all they need is more pressure. A personal appeal from someone who actually gives a shit, for example. But for all his moping, Ripper is decidedly lacking in the action department. When asked how someone can be worth all this emotional turmoil but not worth a simple email to the imperial necromancy department, he just growls and throws food.
Maybe all he needs is more pressure.
tearingup
Two months after Ethan's email about Randall, there is an email about Ethan.
Subject: Look, can you do it or not?
My best friend got himself killed last night. His name was Ethan Rayne. And he was right, it doesn't make sense that you're so fucking sure you can raise the dead but you won't admit to ever doing it or say one word about how you plan to try.
bellfounding
Re: Look, can you do it or not?
I've put Ethan on the waiting list for you, with your email down for contact info. Some magic is more difficult than other magic, and all of it is complicated to explain, but we don't think any problems are permanently insoluble unless they'd require time travel to the past.
I recommend signing up for torching. You can find the form here.
- Imperial Staff
tearingup
Re: Look, can you do it or not?
> Some magic is more difficult than other magic, and all of it is complicated to explain
Try me.
bellfounding
Jane would know what to do with that; her leavings don't. This one stays in Bella's inbox until she gets to it, and the response takes longer.
Re: Look, can you do it or not?
Fine. I have some spare time tomorrow morning, eight-thirty in your time zone. Say the word and I'll teleport in to have a chat about it then.
- Bella
tearingup
That's... a lot more than he expected, really.
Re: Look, can you do it or not?
Be my guest.
bellfounding
At eight thirty, his time zone, the next morning, there's an Empress in his room.
She still defaults to jeans and t-shirts, but Queenie sews her presents sometimes, so they're nice, perfectly fitted, embroidered jeans and blousey ruched "t-shirts" dyed with artful gradients; this pair of jeans is in fact mostly blue and the blouse is eggshell. Her crown is a flat ring that floats like a halo over her head, and it's white, with a thin blue stripe towards the inside. (She enchanted it to match whatever she puts on, but she favors blue and white; may as well run with the coin color.)
Her aura is out, but toggled to "ninja", and she's only interested in being observed along any axis by the person who emailed her, not his roommates, neighbors, or recording devices. It hums magic magic magic in an understated sort of way.
She still defaults to jeans and t-shirts, but Queenie sews her presents sometimes, so they're nice, perfectly fitted, embroidered jeans and blousey ruched "t-shirts" dyed with artful gradients; this pair of jeans is in fact mostly blue and the blouse is eggshell. Her crown is a flat ring that floats like a halo over her head, and it's white, with a thin blue stripe towards the inside. (She enchanted it to match whatever she puts on, but she favors blue and white; may as well run with the coin color.)
Her aura is out, but toggled to "ninja", and she's only interested in being observed along any axis by the person who emailed her, not his roommates, neighbors, or recording devices. It hums magic magic magic in an understated sort of way.
tearingup
Roommates, neighbours, and recording devices are thin on the ground. It's a messy little flat full of guitars and old laundry, and the only person present is a man in his early twenties with vivid green eyes, wearing artfully torn black jeans and an artlessly rumpled white T-shirt. He is drinking tea from a chipped brown mug when she appears, and immediately drops it in his lap with a startled yell.
bellfounding
A triangle leaves his lap devoid of tea.
"Good morning. I am inclined to tell you stuff, but I don't really want you running to the tabloids with it; would you be so kind as to consent to a geas enjoining you not to repeat anything I say to anyone else without my express permission?"
"Good morning. I am inclined to tell you stuff, but I don't really want you running to the tabloids with it; would you be so kind as to consent to a geas enjoining you not to repeat anything I say to anyone else without my express permission?"
tearingup
"I - you - doors," he says, "people have doors, you knock on them, that's how this 'visiting' thing works in England - "
He reaches for a crumpled shirt on the floor, then frowns and sits up again, glancing into the now-pristine mug and then plonking it down on the table (actually a tidy stack of encyclopedia volumes topped by a plank) next to his chair.
He reaches for a crumpled shirt on the floor, then frowns and sits up again, glancing into the now-pristine mug and then plonking it down on the table (actually a tidy stack of encyclopedia volumes topped by a plank) next to his chair.
bellfounding
"I said I was going to teleport," Bella points out. "I apologize for startling you, although I will point out I'm precisely on time."
tearingup
He checks his watch. He frowns. He gets up and goes to the kitchen to check the oven clock, and comes back muttering and fiddling with the watch.
"You said you were going to teleport, sure," he says without looking up from this vital task, "you didn't specify it was going to be into my flat."
"You said you were going to teleport, sure," he says without looking up from this vital task, "you didn't specify it was going to be into my flat."
bellfounding
"It wouldn't have accomplished much if I had elected to teleport to the Andromeda Galaxy. If I find your company charming enough that I want to visit you again in the future I'll put you on the brainphone network and I can warn you when I'm incoming, how does that sound?"
tearingup
"Are you telling me you honestly don't think anything of hopping into a stranger's living room without a word, and advance warning is reserved for people you actually like? For fuck's sake, the door's right there," he gestures, "is it somehow mystically impossible for you to land on the other side of it?"
bellfounding
Bella looks at him, debates the wisdom of having this argument, and then disappears to the other side of the door and knocks as sarcastically as it is possible to knock.
tearingup
He opens the door and steps back to let her in.
"Thank you," he says. "I promise I'm much more charming when no one's died recently."
"Thank you," he says. "I promise I'm much more charming when no one's died recently."
bellfounding
"Yes, about that, were you listening when I asked about the anti-tabloid precaution?"
tearingup
"Not really," he admits frankly, and closes and locks the door behind her, and resumes his seat in the chair. There are two other chairs close by; he gestures invitingly to the one that has obviously seen less use.
bellfounding
She looks at it, then sits on it. "It's not really a problem if one bereaved individual gets some information one morning. My PR people will yell at me if it gets any farther. If you'll agree to it, I can magically enforce a nondisclosure agreement."
bellfounding
"All right." Geas goes; she can feel it settle. "So. I can raise the dead. I just can't do it a lot. The magic I can use to do it is a renewable but finite resource, unlike torching, which I can do as much as I want. Additionally, anyone who died prior to April 4, 2009, may be currently awake in the afterlife, and bringing that class of person back is more complicated - they'll have attachments there, stuff, friends, residences, and I don't have a way to talk to them before I resurrect them. People who died after that date are asleep, but I still can't meaningfully scale things. I used to have a way to handle all of this, but it broke, I can't fix it, and while I wait for it to get fixed from the outside, the passage of time in this universe is not correlated with the passage of time in said outside - it could happen next week or in a hundred years or never."
tearingup
Somewhere between wry and pathetic, "And I can't convince you to put Rayne on the shortlist?"
bellfounding
"Maybe you can. He'd have to predictably agree to the non-disclosure, too, and so would anyone else who learned that he died and would subsequently learn that he's alive. I've done this a few times since the system broke, but largely as a favor to political entities who could notify me instantly on point of death before the news spread and already have the operational security to order the resurrected individuals to keep their mouths shut. Or, I'd have to think that having him back now, as opposed to when the waiting list gets long enough that I'm willing to try some extra big magic on handling it all in a batch, was very important - enough to be worth the risk of getting a hundred million emails from people just like you in a week because Ethan wants to tell the nice reporters about how he was dead and then he wasn't. Well, sort of. He'd be technically dead still, like me."